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	<title>STIR FOOD GROUP</title>
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		<title>Montepulciano the Grape (no, not the village) is a Lovable Big Guy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This title needs explaining.  Montepulciano is one of those incredibly confusing names in Italian wine that can be applied to a grape, village, and style of wine made by the eponymous village.  The village (in southern Tuscany) and style are Montepulciano and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, respectively.  This blog is not about those, even though they delicious in their own right.
No, this blog is about the grape Montepulciano, which I have become a big fan of over the years.  Perhaps it is because I imagine this grape to be the ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/09/02/montepulciano-the-grape-no-not-the-village-is-a-lovable-big-guy/</link>
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		<title>Walk into Your Wine Shop with a Spirit of Adventure</title>
		<description><![CDATA[What’s your favorite thing about wine?  There are innumerable answers to that question but for me the clear winner is that wine presents endless opportunities for exploration.  Wine is fascinating because it is always changing, growing and being driven forward by adventurous growers and up and coming regions.  The last few decades have seen a remarkable expansion of the varietals, styles and regions available.  Just think, who would have ordered Malbec off a menu ten years ago?
The so-called New World of wine has been at the forefront of this expansion, ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/08/27/walk-into-your-wine-shop-with-a-spirit-of-adventure/</link>
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		<title>A Drive Through Amish Country</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This past Sunday needing a break from the constant rush that was restaurant week here in DC, I felt it would be nice to take a quick day trip to the serene and peaceful setting of Intercourse and Bird in Hand, PA.  I figured that this would be not only a fun little drive through farmlands and backcountry winding roads but it would also give me a chance to stop at some farm stands along the way.  The drive was amazing but I did have one slight miscalculation.  The miscalculation ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/08/24/a-drive-through-amish-country/</link>
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		<title>Tasting Tour in Chicago</title>
		<description><![CDATA[At the beginning of last week my wife, Jaime and I were deciding whether we should go to the eastern shore or possibly the jersey shore for the weekend.  During this discussion we received an airfare alert for a very reasonably priced ticket to Milwaukee.  I know what you’re thinking, unless I’m picking up a new Harley at the factory, which I wasn’t unfortunately, why go to Milwaukee?  First reason that’s where one of Jaime’s sisters lives and second, which was my true motive, is that Chicago is only about ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/08/10/tasting-tour-in-chicago/</link>
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		<title>Hard Shell Crabs</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This past Sunday I set out on my weekly drive out of the city and headed to the shore just to walk on the beach.  About a half hour into the drive a large electronic bill board was flashing all lanes closed at exit 41.  As my luck would have it I need to get past exit 41 to in order to arrive at my final destination which was to be Lewes, Delaware.  On the positive side of that I was just outside of Annapolis and it was around 3 ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/08/04/hard-shell-crabs/</link>
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		<title>Wine Pairings for the New Bites Menu!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I get asked a lot of questions about how to pair wines with different types of food, what goes with what and so on. How about pairing a single wine to work with seven different food items? Sounds challenging huh? Well let me tell you first hand it certainly can be. It started when our Chef Bryan Moscatello and I were looking back at our trip to Italy before we opened Potenza. We loved sitting outside these small restaurants whether it was in a city like Rome, Siena or Orvieto ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/07/21/wine-pairings-for-the-new-bites-menu/</link>
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		<title>Bites Menu</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Recently I’ve been able to get out to many of our wonderful local eateries.  In doing this I have come across one small obstacle.  That obstacle is the fact that even my stomach is not large enough to hold everything I want to try.  See, for me the whole point of dining out is to sample a chefs creativity and as much of it as you can.  So dinner after dinner I order everything I would like to try and either leave unbelievably full or leave a ton of food ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/07/21/bites-menu/</link>
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		<title>Newton Vineyards</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was sharing some fun wine stories with our restaurant staff during a wine training class this past week. Since I had spent a tremendous amount of time in Napa Valley, I was asked about some of my favorite places, where did I used to hang out, visit and was my favorite restaurant my namesake Bistro in Healdsburg and so forth. One story I mentioned was the first time I drove to the top of Spring Mountain in Napa in a very beat up CJ7 and saw firsthand a winery ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/07/16/newton-vineyards/</link>
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		<title>Seafood on the Menu</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my desire to see a larger variety of seafood on local menus.  Later that week is was fortunate enough to come across a restaurant serving cuttlefish which happened to be delicious.  Since then I have began my menu development for the fast approaching autumnal season.  For this I have started playing with a variety of products, the aforementioned cuttlefish, sablefish, turbot, langoustines, live scallops, rouget, and suzuki to name a few.
I must admit it has been a long time ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/07/13/435/</link>
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		<title>Icewine</title>
		<description><![CDATA[To close out, what has become a series of posts about dessert wines, I feel it is fitting to share how I was turned on to my other favorite Icewine.  Going back about 20 years ago, I was working in Boston running a snazzy restaurant in the South End where I was introduced to a totally crazy Canadian who owned a winery in Ontario on the Niagara Peninsula of Canada. I had always felt that Canada had great beer and mediocre wines at best. But when I met Donald Ziraldo ...]]></description>
		<link>http://stirfoodgroup.com/blog/2010/07/08/icewine/</link>
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